According to Moore who appears actually to have seen Van Geerts paper, "the plants described were grown from seed supposedly received from Teneriffe in the Canary Islands.  Stems and nerves of the leaves were reddish, the leaves glaucous above and clear green below (an unusual condition if correctly described).  Flowers were said to be of lively rose colour though this information could scarcely have been obtained from the young plants.  It would appear that this name can be rejected under provisions of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, since not only was the description quite inadequate, but the species was only supposed to be new and was not definitely accepted".

Moore also cites De Wildeman as referring the plant of Van Geert to Musa basjoo "with a question".   I wonder if this is because De Wildeman was confused by Baker 1893?

Musa martinii Van Geert is obviously the same plant referred to by Baker 1893 although he gives the page reference in Rev. Hort. Belg. as 109 not 107.  Baker writes that "M. Martini [ ] has the habit of M. sapientum, and is said to be more hardy M. Ensete [ = Ensete ventricosum], with bright rose-red flowers.  The leaves are oblong, long-petioled, firm in texture, bright green above, glaucous beneath, with reddish veins.  It was brought from the Canary Islands." 

Musa martinii Van Geert would appear to be the same plant as that described in RHS 1956 but here it is definitely linked with M. basjoo and is described as "M. Martinii.  Like M. basjoo but taller and [flowers] rose-red.   Canary Islands.  [Introduced to U.K.] 1892".

Baker's comments on M. martinii, in their apparent context, are distinctly odd.   While they are appended to his note on M. basjoo they seem to have nothing to do with that plant but are merely the continuation of a train of thought on hardiness relative to "M. ensete".   It is as if there has been a printer's error whereby instead of being "number 14" in his list of Physocaulis, Musa martinii was absorbed into Musa basjoo and Musa textilis instead became "number 14".  Fawcett certainly seemed to think so because, while obviously following Baker and basing his descriptions on him, Fawcett inserted M. Martini between M. basjoo and M. textilis in his list of (re-classified) Eumusa and did not associate it with M. basjoo.   It is interesting to note that Baker (and therefore Fawcett) reverse the "unusual condition" noted by Moore of the leaves being glaucous above and glossy beneath.  Perhaps they assumed that Van Geert must have made a mistake.

It would appear from this that any association of Musa martinii A. Van Geert with Musa basjoo is quite spurious.

In the light of this GRIN's association of the name Musa martinii A. Van Geert with all three of the (different) entities of "Musa martinii" cited by Moore is distinctly unhelpful.

Under modern rules of botanical nomenclature specific epithets commemorating a person whose name ends in a consonant, in this case M. J. Martin, should end in " ii " not just " i " and the epithet should not be capitalised.

This cannot be reconciled with the information presented by Moore, who lists de Noter's species as M. martinii, and comments on this plant as follows:

"Raphael de Noter described plants grown from seed obtained from the mountain Tay-Ninh about a hundred km. from Saigon, in Indochina, and forwarded by M. J. Martin, at that time Director of the Botanical Garden at Hanoi.

The brown-bluish or glaucous apparently solitary stems of the species reached a height of 3 - 3.5 m., a diameter of 35 - 40 cm. at the base, and died after fruiting.  Leaves to 4 m. long had a red-brown petiole and midrib, a green blade bluish below. The floral bracts were rose and very ornamental, but the small fruits had insipid pulp filled with seeds the size of a very small pea.

Until more is known of this banana from Tay-Ninh, it, too, must remain a questionable species.  F. Gagnepain, in Flore Générale de l'Indo-Chine 6: 142 (1932), listed it without further information and thought it possibly a form of an edible banana".

Moore seemed not to notice that this description is strongly suggestive of an Ensete rather than a Musa.  However, there does appear to be at least one shy suckering Musa in Vietnam - Musa exotica.